Columbine's 'Solution': Software

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Columbine's 'Solution': Software

Ever since Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris staged their murderous, suicidal rampage one year ago Thursday, school officials across the country have been scrambling to figure out how to prevent it from happening again.

In the name of protection and prevention, security guards have been hired, surveillance cameras have been installed, and violence prevention programs have been embraced by a nation that seems willing to do anything to keep its children safe.

But many experts say detecting and preventing another Klebold and Harris is next to impossible.

One of the most controversial of these solutions is an electronic threat-assessment program called Mosaic 2000, created by violence prevention consultant Gavin de Becker, Inc.

Some school administrators say the software will help them pick out a Klebold or a Harris before he does something violent. But critics fear the program has potential for abuse, and say it wouldn't work, anyway.

The program, designed to evaluate specific threats and incidents rather than students themselves, consists of a series of 40 questions that have not been revealed to the public, but are said to include queries like: Does the child have access to a gun at home? Has he threatened to harm others or himself? Has he exhibited cruelty to animals?

The program contains links to information on such subjects as teen suicide, and offers suggestions and recommendations once all the information on a subject has been entered.

"We don't support any instrument that tries to predict violence behavior," he said. "To predict future behavior takes a great deal of research and understanding. I'm not aware of the research that has gone into the development of the Mosaic 2000."

Telephone calls and email messages to Gavin de Becker have gone unanswered, but the company's website states that "nearly 200 expert practitioners from education, threat assessment, mental heath, student counseling, and law enforcement, as well as parents, and even some students" contributed to the program's design.

"My concern about any system is who is using them, and what their qualifications are," he said. "Who makes a judgment whether or not a kid is depressed? That's a medical diagnosis. It does not make a lot of sense to leave this to the judgment of an administrator or a police officer."

Phyllis Hodges, a disciplinarian and assistant principal at Chicago's Von Steuben High School – one of 25 schools selected for beta testing of the project – has been using the program since December.

She says she has used the software to assess three student threats so far, one of which resulted in a police report being filed as a direct result of the program.

"It gives you knowledge where you might not have a knowledge base," she said.

In this case, a student had hit a teacher. Mosaic recommends this kind of offense be reported to police, so it was.

"There were no arrests made, but the school wanted it on record so that if anything more serious occurred it would be on record," she said.

Of course, police records aren't always enough to prevent violence, as the Columbine murders demonstrate. Reports had been filed against both Harris and Klebold long before they opened fire on their classmates.

School security expert Ken Trump, who runs a school safety assessment business in Ohio, said many of the programs that have popped up in the post-Columbine era are not well thought out, and don't solve the question: What now?

"We're seeing a lot of things come out now, a whole lot of overnight experts, gadgets and gurus, and things that are developed by people without any expertise in school safety and youth violence," he said. "We don't need paralysis by analysis."

Like other experts, Trump says the best way to prevent violence is to know the child.

"If Johnny comes in acting weird on Friday, you have to know what's normal for Johnny (on) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday," he said.

Other critics agree the threat assessment software is no match for the issue of school violence.

"Mosaic is a product, one of many products and solutions that have come in wake of Columbine," said American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman Emily Whitfield. "This is a technological fix for a complex problem. A cookie cutter solution doesn't work."

And it may be unnecessary in the first place.

"We are creating systems around the proverbial needle in the haystack," said Modzeleski, who insists that kids are actually quite safe at school.

Center for Disease Control statistics indicate that school-related violent deaths have decreased steadily since 1992. But multiple-victim homicides have increased, from an average of one a year to five a year.

And after two Tuolumne, California 17-year-old boys were arrested earlier this week for allegedly planning to storm their high school and kill students and teachers on the Columbine anniversary, it's hard to dismiss those fears as unfounded.

But if a student threatens to blow up a school, says John Byrnes, president of the Center for Aggression Management, a program like Mosaic 2000 is too little, too late.

"All we're doing is reacting unless we learn to identify the emergence of aggression, foresee the possibility of conflict, and engage and diffuse," he said. "Whether you can profile someone up front, point your finger at a person, and say that person is going to commit violence, is something I'm not sure you can do. Our preference would be to teach individuals at schools so they can identify the emergence of aggression even before it becomes conflict."

"I agree with Gavin de Becker," he said. "He says for every incident there are a pre-incidents. But if you're waiting around for someone to threaten someone, you're already too late. Sooner or later, you're going to experience violence."

"We have to make sure that it's appropriately implemented," she said. "If we identify young people who need extra help, we need to be sure that we have in place a treatment program."

Carolyn Lennon, a 16–year-old high school junior from Boston, also said Mosaic sounded like an OK idea to her as long as it wasn't abused.

"If every time someone acted out, they went into this program and just put everyone into this giant database, that wouldn't be good. But if they could catch students that are going to do a Columbine," it's worth a shot, she said.

The road to programs like Mosaic has been a short one, and is likely to evolve just as the initial reaction to the Littleton murders changed from a denouncement of technology to embracing it as a medium that may hold promise.

Ninety-four percent of all parents whose children use the Web report that their children spend the same amount or more time with family and friends since they started using the Internet. Sixteen percent say their children spend more time, and only 6 percent say they spend less time.

The Mosaic 2000 program isn't Internet based. But it is a computer software program, and at least some supporters think it might be a legitimate answer to violence prevention.

In Chicago, Phyllis Hodges hopes it will serve as the tool that her school needs.

"It gives administration the opportunity to be of assistance, to perhaps call a team together," she said. "The administration can go about helping this child. ... If we can get our young people to understand that they don't need to take a life to get their point across – if we listen to them – we can stop a Columbine."